Update: John Tyson, 4 Others Urge UA Board to Slow Down Stadium Expansion

A rendering of the planned expansion and north end zone redesign at Razorback Stadium.

Update: June 16, 2016 — The UA board of trustees approved the expansion project by a vote of 8-2. David Pryor and Cliff Gibson voted against. More here.

Original post:

Tyson Foods Inc. Chairman John Tyson is among five former University of Arkansas System board members questioning a $160 million proposal to expand Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. 

The UA board begins a two-day meeting today at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain. A vote to endorse the expansion plan is on the Thursday agenda (PDF).

In an op-ed published today by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Tyson and the other former board members said board should slow down expansion plans:

With the financial support from the state already under serious pressure, and consideration being given to completely changing how state support is calculated (to focus on “outcomes” instead of simple enrollment numbers), and with tuition continuing to skyrocket making it more and more difficult for the average student to be able to afford higher education, we simply believe this is a terrible time for the U. of A. Fayetteville to be making a commitment to this kind of debt, especially for this purpose. We encourage the Board of Trustees to slow this project down and continue to review its priorities.

The op-ed is signed by Tyson; Kaneaster Hodges of Newport; Frances Cranford of Little Rock; Diane Nolan Alderson of El Dorado; and Jack L. Williams of Texarkana and Little Rock.

The UA board in January approval preliminary work on the project, which will redesign the north end zone and add 3,000 seats, including club seats and lodge boxes, and bring total stadium capacity to 75,000. At the time, trustee David Pryor, a former U.S. senator and Arkansas governor, abstained from voting, telling the board that he needed more information about the plans, including insight on the costs and benefits of the expansion. In April, the board approved CDI Contractors LLC of Little Rock as the project’s general contractor.

Poll: Tell us what you think. Should UA trustees move ahead with the stadium expansion?

Elsewhere in the op-ed, the former trustees questioned the fundamental need to add stadium capacity:

The last time Razorback Stadium was renovated and expanded, approximately 20 years ago, we spent roughly $100 million to update the facilities and add about 20,000 seats. That worked out to be about $5,000 per additional seat. Since that time, our best guess is that we have had maybe 10 or 12 games “sell out,” but only two or three truly “full houses” in those 20 years. Now we are planning to spend another $160 million (that will in all likelihood end up being $200 million-plus), and are only adding approximately 3,000 seats. Since we have very seldom, in 20 years, filled the stadium up, we really don’t need many, if any, additional seats but we’re still going to spend another $160 million to $200 million on the facility? This simply defies all logic.